Modern libraries have experienced increased demands from patrons, in terms of needs for larger and larger holdings of books and other tangible materials. Accordingly, it is not uncommon for public libraries, for example, to handle collection and distribution of hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of books and materials. Tasks of librarians in handling these ever-increasing volumes are often overwhelming.
Particularly problematic librarian tasks involve receiving, sorting, and ultimately re-shelving material returned from patrons. Tasks of repeatedly manipulating materials in receiving, sorting, and re-shelving, are tedious and have lead to repetitive stress-type physical injuries.
In particular response to the foregoing problems, U.S. Pat. No. 6,000,770 issued to Mark R. Frich (the '770 patent) discloses a “LIBRARY BOOK BIN WITH A VERTICALLY ADJUSTABLE FLOOR”. The '770 patent is fully incorporated herein by reference thereto. The '770 patent is directed to an exemplary SMART BIN® brand of bins for library articles, commercially available from the Tech Logic Corporation of Maplewood, Minn. This exemplary brand of bins features a four-wall bin housing having an uppermost housing plane, and a vertically adjustable floor which is suspended within the housing by cables. The cables pass through a plurality of supports or pulleys, and are wound around a cylindrical drive member coupled to a reversible motor with a power off brake. The cylindrical cable drive member is rotatably disposed about an axle passing through the walls of the bin. The cylindrical cable drive member includes at least one pair of right hand and left hand spiraling grooves having a depth and width sufficient to wind the cables thereon in a single layer. A library article level sensor is mounted to the bin for sensing the presence or absence of library articles above the floor, at a pre-set access level. The sensor's output is provided as an input to a control circuit for maintaining the highest most ones of the articles on the floor at the preset level, to provide a constant article load and article unload floor level.
Although such bins under the '770 patent have alleviated nearly all of the aforementioned problems encountered by libraries, additional needs have subsequently been identified. Chief among these is a desire that the suspended floor be capable of reaching the uppermost housing plane so that none of the walls interfere with or “block” sliding movement of articles from the floor and out of the bin in an unloading operation. Also, it is desired that the bin be completely automatic or “hands free” in loading and unloading operations.
Thus, there exists a need for a bin for library articles and an automatic unloading system therefor, in which a floor of the bin is capable of reaching an uppermost housing plane of the bin, and in which completely “hands free” operations are provided.